Homily for Second Sunday of Lent – 16 March 2025
Longing for Clarity in Faith
Don’t you also wish sometimes that you could experience something as blindingly clear as the Transfiguration in your own spiritual life? Isn’t it true that sometimes it is difficult to hold onto the life of faith, the practice of faith and the love of God. So much in our lives might seem to argue against faith, or would seek to distract us, or give us other priorities. I am sure many of you can identify with wanting to be sure beyond all doubt, or with wanting a real boost of clarity and certainty in the spiritual life.
The Transfiguration of Jesus has captured the hearts of artists and poets down through the centuries. Perhaps, like for me, this is one of your favourite Gospel accounts. Perhaps like me you have been drawn to the representations of the Transfiguration in icons and other forms of art. Something in us longs to have the experience of Peter, James and John on the mountain. Perhaps this is what draws so many pilgrims to the top of Mount Tabor in the Holy Land where this event is believed to have taken place. Perhaps this accounts for the building of churches and monasteries on the top of this mountain over the centuries.
A Glimpse of Christ’s Divinity
The Transfiguration of Jesus is a story of Peter, James and John, being transformed in a moment of mystical prayer. Most likely they would have made the connection with Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan when the voice of the Father was heard saying, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” And after the Resurrection of Jesus they would have remembered this resurrection-like appearance of Jesus in his Transfiguration.
The Transfiguration is of enormous significance because for a brief moment, the disciples and we, are able to glimpse the divine identity of Jesus. Remember that for the most part, despite his profound teaching and miracles, Jesus looked like an ordinary human being. Nowhere in the Gospels is in there any mention of what Jesus looked like, probably because he was pretty much like any other first century Palestinian man.
For us, who have to struggle to believe, who have to continually give ourselves to faith on this journey through life, the Transfiguration is a gift because it is a memory we can go back to when times are tough, when faith is wearing thin, and when we need to go back to the basics of who and what we are as disciples of Jesus. Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain, and it strengthened their faith for the turmoil and trials that would come with the suffering and death of Jesus. The Transfiguration is also to strengthen our faith, and teach us, especially in times of difficulty and doubt.
The Transfiguration and the Covenant
In the readings today we are introduced to great figures of the Old Testament. In the first reading we hear about Abraham, our father in faith, and in the Gospel account of the Transfiguration, we encounter Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets. The Transfiguration reminds us that the whole of the Old Testament, with the Law of Moses, and the teaching of Elijah and the other prophets, is a preparation for the New Testament, the new and final covenant between us and God, made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The reading from the book of Genesis, describes the covenant that God made with his people, in the person of Abraham. Through the sacrifice of Abraham on the mountain, God promised that he would build him into a great nation with descendants as many as the stars in the heavens. God established a covenant, a special relationship with Abraham.
This covenant with Abraham reminds us that God has made a new covenant with us, his people, through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection on the third day. We are a people made for this covenant with God. And our God is a God who longs to be in relationship with us. A covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties, with undertakings and promises on both sides. We participate in this covenant by Baptism and the whole of Lent is about preparing to renew our baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday.
The Journey to Jerusalem
The story of the Transfiguration is told each year on this Second Sunday of Lent. This is because in each of the gospels it comes just after Jesus has warned his disciples that he will be rejected in Jerusalem and suffer, and be put to death on the cross, and on the third day rise from the dead. Jesus showed them his divine glory to teach them that his mission will culminate in the glory of the resurrection. The significance of this is that during Lent, like the disciples with Jesus, we are journeying with him to Jerusalem. Our Lent will culminate in the death and resurrection of Jesus on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
This account of the transfiguration can instruct us on our Lenten journey. For one thing it affirms Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. The early Christians were fascinated by this story of how Jesus’ face changed as he was praying, and his clothing became dazzling white. The word ‘transfigure’ means to change or be transformed. It is a translation of the original Greek, ‘metamorphosis’, a word which is also used to describe the change of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Think about how terrifying but also enthralling it would have been for Peter, James, and John to witness this metamorphosis of Jesus’ physical appearance. No wonder they were afraid, and the gospel says that Peter didn’t know what he was saying.
One way to understand what happened is that the divinity of Jesus, for a moment, shone out through his humanity. We might so easily take the divinity of Jesus for granted and fail to understand that to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, is to be radically challenged to a new way of living. It is a truth which makes demands on us. To claim the divinity of Jesus is to accept his mission, which means that we are meant to enter into the covenant with God that Jesus came to establish.
Called to Be Transformed
Another way that the Transfiguration teaches us on our Lenten journey is that it serves as a reminder to us, that our task as we accompany Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, is to really listen to him, to know him, to learn from him. The purpose of the season of Lent is to bring us to a closer relationship with Jesus and to understand more fully the meaning of his suffering, death, and resurrection, and how through it we receive forgiveness of our sins.
This Sunday we would do well to enter into the conversation with Moses and Elijah, and Jesus, about what Jesus accomplished for us through his passing in Jerusalem, and the covenant that he established with us, and which we enter into through Baptism. Because of this covenant, we are destined to be transfigured like Jesus. The second reading today, from St Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, says that the Lord Jesus Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body. Our earthly bodies will be glorified as we share the life of Jesus in heaven for all eternity.
The Transfiguration confirms for us that there is a spiritual reality that is much greater and more beautiful than the ordinary world of matter that we experience around us. Jesus, through his Transfiguration, confirms for us that he is the Christ, the Son of God. In him rests our whole faith. Let us listen to him.
